My sympathy is about out

Does anybody here know the situation regarding ease and access to voting for the poor and working class in Greece? I’m just wondering if that factors in at all.

And watch the American voters vote for Romney in spades. And get austerity in spades. If Americans had any convictions (they do not – their minds have been rotted by television), they’d vote for anyone except Robama or Obomney, but they won’t. We’re so f**ked.

“they deserve what they get”

I have no problem with people getting what they deserve. I do have a problem with me getting what they deserve.

@ Notorious P.A.T.: – Yeah, I’ve got a problem with getting what they deserve too.

As to your other point, yes, true. But television has homogenized and spread the callousness. Before, there was at least the possibility of a few people pointing out that the local Scrooge was evil. Now, with Koch-dollars, far more people can be infected. At one point in our history, shame and shunning worked – now, with the mass-media, idiots of all stripes are celebrated. How likely is it that a modern day Joseph N. Welch would take down a modern-day Joseph McCarthy with the immortal words, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Who has the courage to call out Obama on his drone selection list in the mass media? Who has the courage to take down the likes of Gingrich, Santorum, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Bachman, Coulter, and others of their ilk, to lasting effect? There are vastly too many sub-human creatures who are encouraged by the violence and cruelty of television to even think about their actions. And the churches encourage such behavior!!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We are well past the point of electing our way out of the catastrophe that’s unfolding in slow motion.

You know, somebody more imaginative than I am could launch an entire new series of sci-fi tales based on a quasi-imaginary future where Canada is the only fit place to live in the Western hemisphere. The Hudson Bay area becomes temperate, and the southeastern U.S. gets a climate as hellish as it’s culture.

thinking? when and who does that nowadays. PR marketing has done the so-called “thinking” most Americans accept without question.

some things never change. Fear is the only rule today, at least in America. Fear of the “other”, fear of taxes, fear of society, Fear all around, to keep the “sheep” in line, to slaughtering house.

Such a successful con job on Americans, why bother to think at all. Empires are obviously built this way, and fall that way, as well.

how can anyone have sympathy for people, like the Irish or Greeks or Americans, who vote for Austerity and Neo Con concepts. willful ignorance has accomplished so much, for the 1%.

Really, there is a point that is alluded to up-thread that I would like to emphasize. I cannot speak to Europe, or even Canada, but here in the Southern US where I live, pro-1% propaganda is so thick and so deep that most people have literally no idea what lies beyond the curtain. Even the European liberals around here (my girlfriend among others) are still smitten with Obama. When I start listing all of the Civil Liberty rollbacks, bombings, assassinations, the bank ass-kissing, they become silent. They are simply unaware of how bad things have become.

Americans are overwhelmed at home and at work. They get what little news they digest from sources on TV and the Radio owned and operated by the 1%. Sources that are going to blind them to their own self interest while serving the interests of the rich and powerful.

Pity, not scorn, is how I feel about my fellow Americans. The overwhelming majority are unaware that their news sources are biased and compromised, and do not have ready access to sources of information that would give them a clear picture of their own self interest. Indeed, part of the propaganda conditioning we receive inoculates us against trusting alternative information sources.

I would be surprised if this dynamic is not also playing out in Greece and in other European countries as well.

@ Bernard,
Well said!

Growth Factor, I’m in the South too. Born and raised as it happens.

All the middle class people I know have more money, free time and access to online news sources than I do, but they could care less about using it. If their Facebook pages are to be believed, they care about themselves, their vacations, their music and their sports teams pretty much exclusively.

I can’t avoid concluding that they are petty, lazy and smug. I hardly think that makes them monsters, but it does appear to make them unfit to hold onto the wealth their hard-working ancestors bequeathed to them. They have not cared one whit while their owners made beggars of the working class, and I’m afraid my working class ears will be deaf to their whines when the devil comes for them.

“When I start listing all of the Civil Liberty rollbacks, bombings, assassinations, the bank ass-kissing, they become silent.”

Yes, I can relate. I keep trolling liberal blogs, simply because I am actually a liberal, and start talking about the same things and I get, “but, health care.” That’s not hard to destroy, and then I get silence. Except when they call me bad names.

I heartily sympathize, though. I go to liberal blogs, too, to see if anyone is upset that the president believes he can have an American killed without trial or charges. Almost no one is. At least I can never let them forget it.

MB:

We are well past the point of electing our way out of the catastrophe that’s unfolding in slow motion.

Most of my adult life it feels I’ve been watching a train wreck unfold before me. There were a number of times it could have been averted, and maybe 2008 was the last time.

-StewartM

i might have pity on the unaware, and hurt, but these “willfully ignorant” middle class zombies are doing damage to those who want no part of the hatred and fear used as a “lever” to suck all our “civilized” American values down the drain. the wanton destruction of our Society, schools, roads, public lands, streams, air we all breathe is “Our” problem. All of us live together.

however far apart we seem to be we are stil interdependent upon the whole of society working. the Middle Class has been so afraid of becoming poor, they totally ignore any sign of poverty or how poverty is increasing all across America.

the FEAR of being poor is all the Elites need to sow the seeds of “differences”/better than. the Middle Class must always be “scared into” remembering which side of the class lines they hope to be. and that is always one up on and better than those poor “losers.” Women, Hippies, Immigrants, Gays, Muslims, the list is long and used quite smartly to keep the White Working Class afraid of becoming one of “them.”

the Southern Plantation was a foretaste and the model of how to set one class of society against each other so the Elites can reap all the MONEY, while the “Us vs. Them” does its’ insidious leaching of community/societal values.

Rednecks have always been raised to fear being a Poor Black and nowadays that includes Mexicans and Muslims. gosh, such an endless supply of “Them” to scare the Whites into shooting themselves in the foot.

Success is not to be messed with, lest anyone dare “educate” the dumb Whites who support the Elites. Such a good thing is a finely tuned instrument requiring constant “attention/PR marketing/Scaring Whites.” At least down here in the South.
that’s been the winning ticket and has been since Cotton was king.

The American Dream as told by John Wayne, George Wallace and the mighty of all mighty Capitalistic Communists, St. Ronnie.

not the American Dream/Reality as told by George Carlin.

the willfully ignorant are not worthy of pity, only scorn.

“You know, somebody more imaginative than I am could launch an entire new series of sci-fi tales based on a quasi-imaginary future where Canada is the only fit place to live in the Western hemisphere. ”

It was written in 1955 – ‘The Chrysalids’ by John Wyndham – we had to read it in school. New Zealand was also spared.

For an intermediate stage, try, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood.

@Morocco Bama – That is as excellent an indictment of Capitalism as I’ve read anywhere.

Tbogg is–how do I put this diplomatically?–kind of an asshole, huh?

“If you can’t prove that Romney would be better than Obama, than vote for Obama!” No thanks.

The fact of the matter is, this System pits one against the other

And where did this system come from? Another planet? And we are the victims?

If there were no white men the enemy would be fabricated using another standard. If you never contemplate the source of competition it will shape shift eternally. Blaming the system is as useless as blaming the other. That’s called giving away power.

I agree that hierarchies are reproduced. But why? Perhaps there is a valid reason. As long as you consider the fact that people might not be geared toward divine goodness overall, then there is hope. Or something. People get along when they have to. Equality comes and goes. Value judgements seem to dominate our every waking moment. Geography determines quite a bit. The arguments about justice and equality get tedious and hackneyed and are used to fix fractured egos and personalities with questionable compassion. Convincing one’s self and fooling others, the age old game.

The hierarchy teaches us to share. The societies based on reciprocity are fascinating. Status is earned through giving and shared resources offers protection against depletion. “I’ll take two goats and see you five chickens. And a basket of yams.”

Somehow the whole thing works out. What system is really in charge? There’s actually a fair amount of reciprocity in our culture. Social engineering of a fair society is suspect and blaming whites is ludicrous. Squirrels are awful too. Horrid. Powerful. They ruin my summers.

I think the system pits one against the other at times and bonds one with the other sometimes, according to the requests of the moment. Maybe it’s all right as is. The idea that humans are poised to alter it drastically is egocentric. It’s an overestimation of power.

I’m a metaphysician who lives in multi dimensions. I’ve thought that maybe I should read it more literally, but that would mean getting tangled up in the daily agony. I’m a micro/macrocosm person. I think the universe is like gears, and that we are one mini system turning another keeping the whole thing humming. Black holes do actually hum in musical notes that are imperceptible to the human ear. The physicists have deciphered them. Systems begetting systems, dying and being born. The connection to cosmic orchestration is my source of freedom. It goes with my dictum that no one is in charge. Who and what exactly am I supposed to fear? We are specks in time.

An egregore has the characteristic of having an effectiveness greater than the mere sum of its individual members.

Yes. That’s the macrocosm. The sum creates another entity altogether. All relationships do this. I lean toward trusting this entity, so I try to cooperate with it, despite my petty complaints and pesky idealism. Like the financial downfall. I don’t feel victimized by it. It’s high time. And according to egregore theory, a memory of something successful might reappear. I think we have knowledge that we can access at will when needed. The inner and outer dimensions are busy. The wizards are tricky. Alignments occur then disintegrate as circumstance demands. We know more than we know.

I see experience as sequential and no part can be deleted or it would fuck up the rhythm. What we see as wrong is probably right. We’re just immersed and can’t perceive the weave. The same with the politicians, the corporations, the evil ones, and all of them. They are a necessary part of the weave. Mere specks.

What is an egregore? It is the psychic and astral entity of a group

That includes this one.

There does seem to be something more at play here

Yes there does. I will have to disagree with the idea that our egregore is maniacally suicidal. I doubt that. We’ll all get safely to our deaths one by one.

That arrangement can be organic and unconscious, or it can be quite formal and deliberate

Therein lies the puzzle.

Bernard:

i might have pity on the unaware, and hurt, but these “willfully ignorant” middle class zombies are doing damage to those who want no part of the hatred and fear used as a “lever” to suck all our “civilized” American values down the drain

I think you vastly underestimate the brainwashing they have received. Those that are in power now were in college in the 1970s, I saw them, and these were the ones targeted by the conservative and libertarian propagandists. Most people form their impressions of “how the world works” at some early age and don’t fundamentally question or revisit that worldview later. Education, for its part, often acts to *cement* that worldview against dissonant facts more than it allows for restructuring it.

So, to the well-propagandized, if what they are told would work isn’t working, the “answer” is to double-down on what’s not working even more so. If stupidity is defined as keep trying what has never worked in the past, call this “educated stupidity”.

-StewartM

mb.

Yes. Concomitance.

Sure, everyone’s reality differs within a range, but there is significant overlap from one individual to another, and that overlap forms the collective consensus reality.

Consensus reality. That’s where I get lost. The daily chaos vaguely represents reality to me, yet I must overlap. I’ve been doing more of that lately, but I still wonder what I’m doing here, caught in this whirlwind of collective emotion, trying to tame it. It’s so true about the cosmological advances, and that keeps me interested, in keeping with your idea that consensus reality could catapult to that lofty level. Rocked to its core to arrive in a state of utter bliss? I have some doubts.

I do think we’ve come to realize that technology might not equate with progress the way we once thought it would, and that could lead to a major adjustment. Every solution is followed by another terrible problem, but if consciousness develops, we might comprehend that as the natural process. We seem to get out of every jam as a species, and I expect that to continue. Of course there are no guarantees. Fearing the worst seems to be useless. The worst comes and goes.

In the meantime, the agony of social decay, interpersonal evisceration on the political stage, economic panic, and overall battering horror when faced with life’s realities are not my idea of daily nourishment. But the crowd relishes it, and if I get a seat at the table, I will brace myself properly.

I’m reluctant to immerse myself in the concept of a new dynamic age, not with any measure of belief attached to it anyway. I expect the many realities to fade in and out as they always do, while I work with my techniques in shaping them to my liking, perhaps tapping into that power you identified.

Anyway, if the material world does a number to mankind, I know nothing about who is at fault and who deserves what. If sacrifices are required , it’s entirely possible that spiritual gains will be made instead, which could influence the consensus reality, although, as I said, bliss is likely to be just beyond the crowd’s permanent grasp. I’ll settle for simple pleasure.

Wealth is constantly in flux. It moves up, then downward, then sideways. If it truly gets too top heavy it will fall naturally. Taxation has an almost mystical quality we have yet to understand collectively. Monetary policy always lands in the 7th circle of hell. We don’t know to whom we owe what, and who is designated to care for whom. Where exactly is the hand that feeds us?